Origin

by Dave Higgins

  But she wasn’t, was she? Edmond was the one who was going to be a great scholar and reveal truths to the world they’d never even known. Not stupid Patty, with her stupid face. And her stupid, stupidity!

  How could he do that without the charm though? What if all he would be his whole life was a pig herder? Or, if he was lucky—and he would be—a pig herder who had the chance to take over when a pig farmer retired?

  Would he have to break his promise to Mr Frett the teacher?

  Chapter 9

  The End

  Edmond jerked awake. Spikes of moonlight slashed through the cracks in his shutters. Something had woken him, but he wasn’t sure what. Then he heard a scream.

  It only took him moments to run downstairs and out into the night. As he did, he felt the tickling under his feet. The dragon was out, and no one had rung the bell.

  Edmond sprinted back into the house and up to his parents’ room, barging the door open. They were both asleep in bed, his Dad’s enormous arm curled around his mother. “Wake up, the dragon is coming.”

  Patty yawned, then waved an arm vaguely at the door. “Don’t be silly. It’s dead. It died in the tunnels.”

  “No, it didn’t,” Edmond said. “It’s coming now.”

  “It’s just a nightmare.” Patty pulled the cover over her head. “Go back to sleep before you wake your father.”

  Edmond didn’t have time to convince her. If his parents hadn’t rung the bell, then people further down didn’t know what was coming. He needed to warn them. Now his mother was awake she’d notice the dragon before it got close, anyway.

  He half-tumbled down the stairs and sprinted for the edge of village, the shaking getting harder under his feet. Slamming full tilt into the pole with the alarm on it, he yanked the rope as hard as he could. Dolorous clangs echoed the rhythm of the approaching doom.

  Moments later, lights appeared around the village. Edmond kept ringing until the shaking threatened to knock him off his feet. Turning, he saw an enormous shape lumber out of the darkness.

  Feet pounding before his fingers left the rope, Edmond raced for the village.

  The clangs tailed off as the lumbering behind him grew to a trot.

  Years of being bullied had taught Edmond that looking back only meant you were hit in the face rather than the back. Sprinting past his house, he aimed for the dragon shelter.

  Jon waved franticly at him from the cellar door, face pale.

  Edmond dived through. The basement was packed with villagers. “Close the door! It’s right behind me.”

  He didn’t need to ask Jon twice. The bar thudded into place before Edmond’s feet had stopped moving.

  Edmond scanned the crowd. “Where are my parents?”

  “They’re not here,” Reg said. “They never came.”

  Edmond pressed his eye to a crack in the door. He could see his house. There were no lights in the windows; but he didn’t need them to see the huge, dark shape of the dragon just beyond.

  The beast lowered its head and opened its mouth, teeth glistening in the moonlight. A high-pitched shriek filled the square, loud enough to make Edmond’s teeth rattle.

  Finally, a light appeared in his parents’ bedroom.

  The dragon stalked forward, sniffing the air. Turning toward the window, it stretched its snout out and inhaled.

  The shutters slammed open, revealing Dobb. Winding his fist back, he punched the dragon on the nose.

  The dragon’s head swayed from side to side as it took a step back. Then lunged forward, neck straightening and clamped its mouth around Edmond’s father. The crunch of bones was loud, even through the heavy cellar door.

  The dragon backed away a few paces, Dobb’s legs dangling from its mouth, then tossed its head back and swallowed.

  Edmond slumped against the door, unable to look away. It couldn’t be true. His father couldn’t have just died in the mouth of the dragon. It wasn’t possible.

  The door to the house opened and Patty burst out, screaming at the top of her lungs and wielding a knife.

  With a bob of its head, the dragon grabbed Patty off the ground and swallowed her.

  “No!” Edmond scrabbled for the bar on the door.

  Dozens of hands grabbed him and pinned him down. He kept squirming, trying to break free, but he wasn’t strong enough.

  They didn’t let him go until the first light of dawn shone through the cracks in the door. The ground had stopped shaking long before, the dragon returned to the cave to hide and digest.

  Jon opened the door and took a tentative look outside, then nodded.

  More due to the pressure of the crowd behind him than active choice, Edmond got to his feet and walked out, his feet dragging as he stumbled to where the dragon had eaten his mother. The last words he’d said to her echoed through his head. He’d called her the worst mother in the world. But she wasn’t. She’d only had his future in mind. Why was he trying to be a scholar and learn to read? It was a ridiculous fantasy.

  Something gleamed in the mud. Bending, Edmond picked up the charm and stared at it. A few paces away his book lay undamaged on the ground. He staggered over to it, then walked into his parents’ house. Finding a cupboard, he placed the charm and book inside and closed the door. If he had his way, he would never open that door again. He’d work hard as a pig herder and do what his mother had said.

  Collapsing onto a chair, Edmond wailed. His mother was gone. His father was gone. He’d never see either of them ever again. He was on his own. They’d annoyed him so much with their stupidity that he never thought he’d miss them once they were gone. An aching void inside sucked at him, so big that he never thought he’d be whole again.

  He didn’t hear Daffodil enter, just felt her arms wrap around him from behind in a hug. The press of her face against his back somehow made him feel a little better.

  They stayed like that for a long moment, then Daffodil let go and walked around to face him. “Reg has called a village meeting.”

  Edmond wiped at his tears, trying to pull himself together. “Thanks.”

  “I thought you should know.”

  “Not for that. We should be at the meeting. Reg’ll evacuate the village, now. We can’t stay here with a man-eating dragon nearby.”

  “Do you think…? Do you think the dragon smelled them out because it followed you here?”

  “Maybe,” Edmond said.

  “Didn’t it get your scent too?”

  Edmond nodded.

  “I don’t want you to die.”

  “And I don’t want to die.” Edmond was only half-sure it wasn’t a lie. “Let’s see what Reg has to say.”

  Everyone stared at Edmond when he entered the village square. Some were looks of sympathy; but most were strangely blank, as if people didn’t want to give him any opening to cry again.

  “I was wrong,” Reg said. “We shouldn’t have let the village idiots guard against a dragon attack. No offence, Edmond.”

  Edmond just shrugged.

  “But I have a new plan,” Reg said. “One that will make sure we don’t have to worry about the dragon again.”

  “What?” Daffodil asked.

  “We find volunteers to be eaten instead of us,” Reg said.

  “Who would ever volunteer to do that?” Jon asked.

  “Adventurers,” Reg said. “We’ll send out notices saying there’s gold in the tunnels and adventurers will come to kill the dragon for us.”

  “There’s no gold in the tunnels,” Daffodil said. “Just a witch.”

  “You don’t know that,” Reg said. “Everyone knows dragons like gold. There might be gold down there. That might be why it came here to live.”

  Edmond shot Daffodil a look, warning her not to say anything. It was bad enough his parents were dead; he wouldn’t have them die villains.

  “So, we announce there’s gold down there,” Reg said. “Adventurers come and kill the dragon. Or fill its stomach. Either way, we don’t have to worry.”

&nb
sp; “What about the goblins and the witch?” Daffodil asked.

  Reg nodded enthusiastically. “Good thought. I expect goblins hoard gold too. So, we’re sitting on top of a mountain of treasure.”

  Edmond saw a few people shooting one another worried glances, but they were too scared to protest.

  “Edmond can write the notices,” Daffodil said. “He knows how to read and write. I’ve seen him read from a big book.”

  “You do?” Reg asked.

  Edmond shrugged. The last thing he wanted to do was read and write.

  “He can,” Mr Winchow said. “I lent him a book to practice.”

  “Good,” Reg said. “Because my writing skills are a little rusty.”

  Edmond realised Reg wasn’t the only one leaning slightly toward him, or the only one nodding encouragingly. Reg couldn’t write. Probably no one in the village could. He was the only one that had even tried to learn. Because it was crazy. Who ever heard of a farmer becoming a scholar? It was ridiculous enough to laugh.

  People stared as Edmond chortled, then threw his head back and roared his amusement at the sky.

  Just as he finally got himself under control, he remembered the big book of dragons said dragons didn’t hoard gold. So they’d only get stupid adventurers. Rolling on the floor, he giggled at the absurdity of anyone choosing to hunt a dragon if they were smart enough to read.

  Edmond’s tale continues in:

  Adventure

  Hair like a waterfall at sunset, skin of pure snow, and a tinkling laugh that sends a shiver up Edmond’s spine. He knows it’s just because of Melinda’s high Charisma, but he doesn’t care. Edmond is in love.

  When Melinda is taken by the dragon that lives beneath their town, he knows he has to save her. In books, it’s always the lowly shop boy who succeeds where others have failed. He doesn’t have the Strength of a warrior, the Dexterity of a rogue, or the Wisdom of a magician. He just has his Luck.

  Luck and a best friend with muscles like boulder-covered rocks.

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  Simon’s Afterword

  I’ve often wondered what makes someone successful. Why do some people rise to the top, while others stay where they are? More and more, it seems like almost everybody can do almost anything.

  There are physical limitations, of course. If you’re short, it’ll be harder to play basketball in the NBA. But if something is physically possible, then it can be done. So why do some people succeed while others fail?

  To me, the key difference is drive. The tenacity to keep at something until you achieve what you want. With a high enough motivation to succeed, any other limitations pale in comparison.

  But that motivation is difficult to achieve. It seems like our bodies are designed to sap our motivation at every turn. Thinking and doing take energy. They take calories that our bodies are evolved to conserve at all costs.

  To find the drive to succeed, each person needs to discover the thing that beats evolution. The job, field, or project that they keep going back to.

  Edmond is a character that tests that, for me. He has every disadvantage against what he wants to do. Being a scholar is a possibility, but only a remote one. One that everyone else would abandon, long before they achieved it.

  But Edmond is lucky. He’s found his goal early, with plenty of time to overcome the obstacles in his way. As long as he can just stick with it.

  A quote that’s stuck with me from The West Wing is:

  “My IQ doesn’t break the bank and I wanted to do this so I studied all the time.”

  — Josh Lyman

  It’s not easy, but it is simple. Just like Edmond or Josh, each of us can achieve great things if we set our minds to it. But that takes exploration, until we discover the thing we truly love. After that, the effort to achieve will be enjoyable.

  Simon Cantan, 11th October 2016

  Dave’s Afterword

  After co-authoring three volumes of Greenstar, Simon and I both wanted to keep our partnership going. Therefore—while we took a breath to work on our own projects—we started brainstorming ideas for a new story almost straight after Greenstar Season 3 hit the shops.

  We had several fun ideas (some of which might well see the light of day in the future), but Simon had recently seen The Gamers, so the idea of fantasy where all the characters actually had numerical characteristics really grabbed him.

  And, after decades of playing tabletop roleplaying games, I really enjoyed the idea too.

  As any roleplayer knows, there are players who are in it for the story and players who are in it to win (by whatever criteria for winning the player has in their head); and the players who want to win will sometimes bend the rules until they squeak.

  Which is where Edmond came from: the ultimate in min-max characters; but, because it’s comedy, built in potentially the least effective way possible.

  Of course, that brought its own problems: as most authors realise almost immediately, stories about characters getting into trouble then being saved by unfeasible coincidences aren’t very satisfying.

  However, tales about everything a character does to save themselves only making it worse have been thrilling audiences since well before Aristotle decided that all stories could be divided into two sorts.

  So, we decided that putting the two together would make something we’d enjoy reading; and if you’ve reached this paragraph I suspect you agree with us.

  Dave Higgins, 11th October 2016

  About Simon Cantan

  An avid reader from an early age, Simon Cantan loved to get lost in the worlds that Piers Anthony, Douglas Adams, and others created. When he read Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted at the age of thirteen, he knew he wanted to write, and has been pestering people about it ever since.

  Two decades later, Simon has published several books, including the Bytarend series, Shiny New Swindle, and Hard Vacuum. He continues to write science-fiction and fantasy, usually with a humorous slant to it.

  More details about Simon and his books can be found at SimonCantan.com.

  About Dave Higgins

  Dave Higgins has worked in law and IT for both public and private sector organisations. When not pursuing these hobbies, he writes poetry and speculative fiction.

  He was born in Wiltshire, England. Raised by a librarian, he started reading shortly after birth and has not stopped since. He currently lives in Bristol with his wife, Nicola, his cats, Jasper and Una, and many shelves of books.

  More details about Dave and his books can be found at davidjhiggins.wordpress.com.